Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman Part 4

CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here.

TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise!

CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel.

TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench?

CLER: Yes, that they are.

TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither.

DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith.

TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him.

DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent.

TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot.

Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still.

CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies.

TRUE: You do not mean to confound me!

CLER: Why?

TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much?

CLER: I cannot tell.

TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him.

CLER: Why?

TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw!

and he teach her not to speak!--G.o.d be wi' you.

* I have some business too.

CLER: Will you not go thither, then?

TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears.

CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms.

TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance.

CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar.

TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys t.i.tles, and nothing else of books in him!

CLER: The world reports him to be very learned.

TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him.

CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him.

TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! G.o.d be wi' you, gentleman.

[EXIT HASTILY.]

CLER: This is very abrupt!

DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus.

CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow.

DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets.

CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily.

DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you.

CLER: When were you there?

DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state.

CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy.

[EXIT PAGE.]

DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole.

CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin.

DAUP: Do you know him?

CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at.

He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait.

DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot.

[RE-ENTER PAGE.]

CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole.

PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name.

CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life.